the fiscal cliff is going cost the economy in that order of magnitude, 3 million jobs. we should not, not, not go over that cliff. now -- >> by the same token, though, his point about -- and i don't want to make this about ed. the fact remains that the debt levels we have in this country in effect put a cap on growth right now. >> sure, sure, sure. i think that economists have been saying for years -- i have said repeatedly, economists on both sides of the aisle have said repeatedly what we need is a long-term plan for deficit reduction that begins to take effect when the economy is closer to its capacity. right now it's at least 6% below its capacity. the unemployment rate, 7.7, it should be like 5.7 at capacity. we should not be doing a lot of deficit reduction right now. we want to sends a credible message to markets that we're serious about deficit reduction, but to put it in place in that brutal way, $600 billion next year, forget it. that's not good economics. >> there is a school of thought that says that we just have to get used to lower job creation, right? tha